For 15+ years, Conservation International has been on an amazing journey with Starbucks to ethically source their coffee around the world.​

Together, we have created a new way to produce coffee: one that is sustainable, transparent, and good for people and the planet. Now,
Starbucks has verified 99% of their coffee as ethically sourced, making them the largest coffee retailer to reach this milestone.

But there is always more to do. Starbucks is committed to 100% ethically sourced coffee and CI is a proud partner in this effort.​

Our role

Stemming from the ground work with coffee farmers – by introducing communities to the emerging forest carbon market, to creating farmer loans, to the C.A.F.E. Practices program – CI and Starbucks continue to innovate within the coffee sector. Together, we are sparking an industry-wide movement to make coffee the first sustainable agricultural product in the world.

CI and Starbucks joined forces to develop buying guidelines for ethical coffee sourcing.

C.A.F.E. Practices guidelines help farmers grow coffee in a way that's better for both people and the planet. Through ongoing monitoring and evaluation of our joint initiatives we are able to measure program performance, identify new challenges and opportunities and determine how best to expand our support for global coffee growing communities.

In December 2015, with the Starbucks Company as the founding partner, and with support from 18 initial partners, Conservation International launched the Sustainable Coffee Challenge, a sector-wide effort to make coffee the world’s first sustainable agricultural product.

The Challenge is a pre-competitive collaboration of partners working across the coffee sector, united in developing a shared framework for helping governments, businesses and other actors understand how they can contribute to making coffee the first sustainable agricultural product. It is focused on stimulating demand for sustainable coffee across the value chain. In 9 months, the Coffee Challenge has grown to a diverse coalition of nearly 50 partners from across the coffee sector from retailers, traders, governments, donor agencies and other NGOs – united by a sense of urgency and shared commitment to ensuring the long-term viability of coffee.

Beyond its commitment to ethical sourcing, in September 2015, on National Coffee Day, CI and Starbucks teamed up once again to launch the One Tree for Every Bag commitment.

As part of this program, Starbucks contributes 70 cents (the cost of a new tree) to CI for every bag of coffee sold at participating stores in the U.S. CI in turn makes grants to seedling nurseries that provide new rust-resistant coffee trees directly to farmers in El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico. The farms receiving these trees are C.A.F.E. Practices-verified farms. These farms and farmers have experienced the impact of coffee rust, a plant fungus that’s damaged millions of trees around the world.

As a partner in this effort, CI is working with Starbucks and the administrator of the nurseries to monitor the safeguards put in place to ensure fairness and compliance. Every day, your purchase is helping to make sure Starbucks’ coffee is produced in a way that is sustainable, transparent, and good for people and the planet. In little less than a year, Starbucks and CI were able to hit the 18-million coffee tree milestone through the One Tree for Every Bag Commitment. The partnership will continue until June 2017.

In September 2016, CI and the Starbucks Foundation have joined forces to design and implement net-positive-impact coffee origin demonstration that delivers and quantifies positive outcomes for coffee farmers, communities, and water conservation in Oaxaca, Mexico. The project will define a new model for origin-based investments within the coffee sector. CI will be focusing on revitalizing the shade management systems to support productivity as well as wildlife conservation and food and income diversification.